Archive for 2012
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
If whales are the iconic species for ocean conservation, then coral reefs are the iconic ecosystem. Coral reefs are centers of ocean biodiversity, occupying less than 0.1 percent of the ocean surface while supporting 25 percent of the world’s marine species. With the riot of color and panoply of creatures adapted to these unique environments, […]
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of Kathleen Dean Moore
If you wanted to listen to the ocean, what would you do? Would you sit on a rocky headland while waves crashed and thundered their slow beat far below? If you wanted to delight in the ocean, what would you do? Would you float on gorgeous, green, rolling waves while a pod of dolphins leaped […]
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of Christopher Sabine
As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased from around 280 parts per million preindustrially to near 400 parts per million in 2012, the scientific community has been diligently working to predict how much warmer the earth’s atmosphere will become. It is well known that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased due mainly […]
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of William Fitzgerald
Have you ever paused as you made a tuna sandwich and wondered just what went on in that fish’s life? To grow large enough to be caught, the tuna must have eaten a lot of food—smaller ocean creatures—that had, in turn, been eating and growing in the ocean for their whole lives. If “you are […]
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of Barbara Block
On October 2 and 3, scientists, students, and the interested public will converge on Gustavus Adolphus College to discuss “Our Global Ocean.” Through time, oceans have fascinated and nourished us, yet we know very little about the sustainability of the organisms we harvest from their depths. In order to know more, we first must find […]
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of Maya Tolstoy
What does the bottom of the ocean really look like? Ask a child to draw the seafloor, and she’ll likely draw something that looks like the bottom of a swimming pool with seaweed growing in towers. The deep seafloor is intriguingly more complex than this, of course, and no one knows that better than Maya Tolstoy. […]
Nobel Conference 48 Profile of Dr. David Gallo
Deep in the heart of North America, far from any salt-water shore, a scientific conference that focuses on the world’s oceans will be held at Gustavus Adolphus College. While the location might seem unlikely, that impression is superficial since the earth’s oceans have a massive influence on the well-being of all of humankind, regardless of […]
Nobel Conference 48 Update
The oceans have long been a source of fascination, from the tales of Sinbad to the popular Blue Planet documentary. The marine world provides us with seafood and medicines, fertilizers and petroleum. And the oceans are associated with danger, from the exaggerated fiction of Jaws to poorly understood feedback on climate change. Nobel Conference 48 at Gustavus Adolphus College […]